VIA Motors

Tucked away inside Orem city limits is a facility owned by a car company which the average citizen knows little about. Their name is Via Motors and they have their headquarters in our community. Since their creation in 2010 Via Motors has been focused modifying trucks and van to create extended-range electric vehicles. Over the last 5 years, they have worked almost exclusively with both local and national companies’ fleet vehicles. Their hard work has resulted in their winning the NTEA Work Truck Show 2012 Green Award for their VIA VTRUX truck.

The VIA VTRUX Truck has been designed to be powered on little to no gas while maintaining a high level of towing power. The VTRUX is able to drive an average of 40 miles on a single battery charge. Once the battery hits about 20% the car then switches on the engine to drive a generator. The reason why VIA Motors worked towards 40 miles per charge is because the average American drives 40 miles a day. This way they can put in a more effective battery, bringing down the cost, and make the room for a gas tank, giving the truck the best of both worlds. If you would like to find out more about Via Motors you can find out more at viamotors.com.

VOTE TODAY FOR BRAD DAW!!!

Last Minute Attack Ads

Last minute negative attacks are an unfortunate reality. They taint the attacker and the target, reduce civil discourse to cheap sound-bites and disgust the public into apathy towards the whole political system. And now here it is raising its head in this race.

This attack really leaves me scratching my head. Somehow I'm responsible for a law that has been on the books for decades. I also seem to be responsible for not passing legislation to ensure that the actions of a rogue police officer don't happen, even though those actions took place when my opponent was in office.

My opponent also wants to take me to task for sponsoring a bill that passed unanimously, and while she implies all sorts of abuse, she can't point to a single case of actual abuse. On the other hand, we can point to the fact that dozens of pedophiles and child predators have been brought to justice. She also seems to want to ignore the fact that bringing this under state control was the only path to move it from an administrative subpoena to a court order.

I ask you not to reward this kind of campaigning. I ask for your vote today.

On a More Positive Note

Today is election day, the polls are open and the process of setting the direction for our state, county and school district is under way. As you are heading out to vote, you can click here if you need to look up your polling place.

As you already know, I am running to become your State Representative. If you want to know a little about me you can click on my website. You can also go here to have a look at my campaign finances and see who contributed and how I spent it.

During the past few weeks I have had the privilege of walking in every precinct in our district, knocking on hundreds of doors and speaking with many of you. I had some great conversations and got some good ideas about how to make our state better.

Some things you can expect if you vote for me are:

Keeping your private records private.

Ensuring that elections are open, transparent and free from fraud.

Putting Utah's lands under Utah's control.

Removing the government from the doctor's office.

Having and education system owned and operated by the people of Utah not the bureaucrats of Washington.

Improving the statewide online education system I helped to create.

Moving UTOPIA to the private sector in a way that does not leave taxpayers holding the bag.

Combatting death and addiction from prescription drug abuse.

Representing you to the state government, not the other way around.

Holding regular town hall meetings.

Responding to you promptly and courteously.

Sending out frequent newsletters and updates.

I thank you for your consideration, and I ask you for your vote.

Campaign Finance Reform

Election day is just around the corner. I want all of you to know how much I have enjoyed meeting with you, talking with you on the phone, and responding to your emails. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration and the ideas you've had to make our state better. We need many good people engaged and informed to keep our government on track and we need to be ready to respond when problems arise. If you are not sure where to vote, please go here to look up your polling location. Also, if you would like to see who has donated to my campaign and how I spent it, use this link.

One of the more positive things to come from the whole John Swallow debacle is that it showed there are far too many loopholes in our campaign finance reporting laws. Many of those have now been closed or at least narrowed. Here are a few of the more important reforms that have taken place.

One of the more devious things that John Swallow and his campaign manager, Jason Powers did was to create a dummy corporation called "Proper Role of Government Education Association". This corporation had nothing to do with the proper role of anything, it was strictly a legal contrivance whose sole purpose was to hide donors and allow Swallow and Powers to launch smear campaigns against political foes. The House Investigative Committee report uncovered around $452,000 was funneled into this corporation and used to launch smear campaigns against me and Sean Reyes. The bill, which I helped to write, requires corporations that give money to political causes to disclose the donations used to make fund the political cause. In other words if a corporation is going to behave like a Political Action Committee (PAC) then it should be treated like a PAC. If you go to the link above you can click on the status tab and from there you will see that each vote total is a link that allows you to see exactly how each member of the House and Senate voted.

The best description of push polling that I have heard is "negative phone banking masquerading as a poll". The idea behind a push poll is to ask the recipient leading questions like "would you vote for John Doe if you knew he supported ObamaCare?" A push poll is not about determining public opinion but is about pushing it in a certain direction. The other disingenuous aspect of these types of polls is they are usually made from anonymous phone numbers and even though they are expensive to conduct they rarely show up on a campaign expense report. The bill above was another one I wrote. It simply requires that all polls must say who is paying for them. That makes it difficult for a push poller to operate as they certainly don't want the poll being tied back to the candidate they are trying to get into office.

One of the tricks that many campaigns engaged in is the last minute flurry. Prior to this bill being passed, a candidate had 30 days to collect money from anyone and it would not show up on a financial disclosure until after the election was past. This bill requires candidates in a contested race to report donations within three days of receipt. However, there is still a loophole. Receipt of a donation is defined as when the candidate actually deposits the check and not when he receives it. I've seen cases where candidates will put an expense on their credit card and not actually deposit the donation until the credit card bill is due, thus reopening the 30 day window. You can see this by looking for expenses that are reported well after the event.

This bill requires third parties making an independent expenditure in a campaign over $1000 to report that expenditure to the Lt. Governor.

There are a number of other bills that passed, but these represent the most significant and needed reforms. As always if you have any questions about any of these or anything else please call me or email me. I'll be glad to answer you.

Early Voting and Education

Early Voting

Early voting has begun. From now until Friday the 20th you can go to the city center building at 56 N State and cast your ballot. Enter the doors to the left of the main library entrance and turn left. This will take you to the rotunda where polling tables and voting machines are set up.

Education

One of the most important things we can do as a society is educate our children. In fact its hard to imagine a pursuit more vital to the long term health and well being of our country. I believe that education by its very nature starts in the family even before birth. While government should never attempt to trump the vital role a family plays in a child's education I believe that state and local government have a duty to provide an array of high quality education opportunities. This article has some great ideas about options for your child's education.

One of the great concerns I see right now in education is Common Core. What seemed like a good start with the Governor's association has turned into the beginnings of federal intrusion into our education system. What's more it appears that the stated goal of preparing students for a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) college major are not going to be achieved. This study shows that Common Core standards will leave students unprepared.

I believe that a hard look at why Utah is using Common Core is very much in order.

Flag Day

Today is Flag Day and I wanted to leave you with this rendition of "That Ragged Old Flag" by Johnny Cash. When I went to scout camp and Scofield, the rifle range director would recite this. And though he was no actor, his emotion was clear and he always brought a tear to my eye. I hope you enjoy it.

Keeping your email private

I ran across a bill this week making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill repeals the ability of federal agents to use an administrative subpoena to access a person's email that has been sitting on a server for more than 180 days. This obsolete law was based on the dead letter law for the US postal service and does not reflect the current reality that email never really leaves a server. The fact is there is no good way to tell if email is dead and the only way any government agency should be able to access it is with a search warrant. This bill is very much the same thing I did in Utah. I have emailed Congressman Chaffetz, asking him to become a cosponsor of the bill. He wrote back and said it sounded like a good bill to him and he would look into it. He also mentioned that he had a similar bill that required agents to get a search warrant before accessing geolocation from a person's cell phone. This is also a good idea. If you like either or both of these bills, email our congressman and let him know.

Remembering D-Day

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of D-Day. It's a good time to reflect on those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. This is a great story about a D-Day paratrooper who jumped into France 70 years ago and at the age of 93 repeated the jump.